Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
Claire insisted on driving me back to my house for my “talk” with the cop. Not an interview or an interrogation, Officer Hernandez assured me via text. She just wanted to swing by and catch up. You know, like cops did.
It was hard for me to turn down Claire’s suggestion, since she had a car.
She was also a woman on a mission. By the time Hernandez showed up at the front door of my duplex, Claire had not only swept through the entire first floor like an avenging Molly Maid, she’d warmed up the cookies she’d insisted we buy at a bakery along the way and had set out take-out coffee in real-life mugs as if I actually had a coffee maker in my house.
By this time, Claire was practically bouncing off the walls with excitement.
I got the feeling she didn’t have enough going on in her life. The thought made me smile.
“Officer Hernandez, this is my friend Claire,” I said, when Hernandez stepped into the living room, smelling of questions, yesterday’s court appearance, and surprising cheerfulness.
“She also knows about Mordechai, though they never met in person. If she can’t stay while we talk, that’s totally okay. ”
“Claire…” Hernandez held out her hand, and Claire took it eagerly.
“Bickwell,” she said with a bright smile. “Delia and I work near each other, that’s how we met. I’m a pharmacist at Reider’s on Madison, do you know it?”
I didn’t have the heart to tell Claire that Hernandez had probably already run her license plate, but Hernandez, to her credit, just smiled.
“I do. Nice to meet you.” She shifted her attention to me as we sat, all of us ignoring the cookies. “I understand you had a run-in with the rabbi’s nephew after Mordechai’s death.”
“Rabbi Ethan?” I frowned. “I did, but that was two weeks ago. I haven’t been back since, I swear.”
She nodded. “He said the same thing, but he still didn’t seem too pleased with you when we spoke yesterday.”
“Well, I didn’t know what else to do,” I said, hearing the defensiveness in my voice. “I guess I shouldn’t have tried to return the documents I had of Mordechai’s so soon. But I felt bad, keeping a hold of them.”
“I understand.” She studied me. “He asked a lot of questions about you.”
That made me go a little cold. “Really?”
“Yes. Said he knew about you, from his uncle, of course, but that you were nothing like he expected.”
I tensed, then picked up my mug of coffee to cover the movement. What exactly had Ethan been expecting? “Did he tell you something about me I should know? Did he file a complaint or whatever?” My eyes widened. “Is that why you’re here?”
“Slow down, it’s nothing like that.” She held up her hands with a smile. “I just found out more about Rabbi Mordechai’s passing this morning, and after I shared it with him, I wanted you to know as well. Talking over the phone felt…not good enough.”
“Oh.” Relief washed through me. “I mean, yes. Totally. Thank you.”
She nodded, but both she and Claire watched me closely.
I sipped my cooling coffee and tried not to look possessed.
“The doctor said the results of the autopsy were conclusive. Death was due to cardiac arrest. Your Rabbi Mordechai had partial blockage in one of his arteries and nearly full blockage in the second, so a heart attack was more a matter of when, not if.”
I frowned. “But he never seemed sick.” Not exactly true, of course. Mordechai had struck me as appearing weaker, recently. I’d noticed it. Had I said something to him about that? I…I didn’t think so.
Why hadn’t I said anything?
“With cases like these, sometimes there aren’t any symptoms.” Again, Hernandez seemed gentle, almost reassuring. I shifted a little uneasily in my chair.
“What about his hands?” The question came out before I really knew what to do with it. I set my cup back down. “You were worried about his hands—they were blistered, you said.”
“Blistered?” Claire piped up, but Hernandez shook her head.
“Not blistered. Apparently, Mordechai had a skin ailment, sort of a dermatitis, the doctor told me, that afflicted the fingers and had become inflamed, possibly as part of his body’s reaction to the heart attack.”
“Oh.” Curiously, I felt both reassured and anxious at once. “Well, I’m a terrible friend, either way. I never even noticed his hands.”
“But you wouldn’t have, right?” Claire nodded to Hernandez, who now regarded her with more than mild interest. “I mean, not necessarily. I’m a pharmacist, so I know a little about what might have happened.
Rabbi Mordechai’s hand condition might have been pretty mild until his heart attack, and then when that happened, it reacted right along with the rest of his body. ”
“Exactly.” Officer Hernandez nodded, then looked back at me. “The head injury was never really explained, and I still haven’t figured out what he meant by the word he wrote on the ground.” She reached for her pocket, pulled out a worn-looking notebook, and flipped it open.
My blood seemed to ice over, and I stiffened so sharply, I’m surprised my back didn’t snap. “I haven’t either,” I said quickly, shaking my head. I could feel Claire’s startled gaze shift to me, but I didn’t care. “It may not be safe to talk about that.”
“Safe?” Hernandez peered at me. “Why not?”
“I don’t know—it’s just—” I shook my head harder now, my vision seeming to blur. Suddenly, I could see another person in front of me, another scene. Rabbi Mordechai, yelling at me. Only instead of telling me to run, to get away, his words were much more specific. “Go!” he’d yelled. Go!
Darkness exploded in the back of my brain.
“…Delia?”
I blinked my eyes open. Everything looked out of whack, upside down and off-center.
In less than a second, I realized I must have fainted.
I was on the carpet, next to the couch. Claire and Officer Hernandez stood over me, their faces tight.
Hernandez had her hand on her phone, lifting it to her ear.
“No! God, sorry, I’m fine.” I sat up quickly, but not too quickly—the room didn’t spin. “I’m good. I…I’m sorry. Please—don’t call anyone. I don’t have insurance. And I’m okay.”
Looking unhappy, Hernandez pocketed her phone. “You eat anything today?”
“She’s so bad about that.” Claire harumphed as they helped me back up onto the couch. “Here, there are all these cookies, and—” She picked one up, but when I waved her off, she scowled at me. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hungry?”
“I’m sorry.” I put my hand on my belly, where something still writhed and twitched inside me, even as the darkness bled away. Not hunger, though. Not even close. “I just got busy. Sorry to freak you guys out, I sort of freaked myself out too, I guess.” I laughed shakily.
“Do you have someone who can check up on you?” Hernandez asked. “Your housemate—Steve, right? Is he around?”
“Oh. No. He moved out.” I steadied myself. “I’ll just get something to eat.”
“We’ll get something to eat. Besides cookies.” Claire sat down next to me.
Hernandez seemed satisfied. She said more words, inconsequential words, but not the one word that hovered just on the edge of my awareness, taunting and teasing me before slipping back into the dark.
Still, I didn’t really start breathing normally again until long after she left.
It wasn’t until another week after I called that I finally got a text from Max—fully twenty-four days since I’d been to his place the first time.
When it popped up, I was working at the deli. I’d planned on quitting after the influx of his ten thousand dollars, but I’d found I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I couldn’t bring myself to thinking of the money as real, as final. That the job was finished.
So I was in the middle of filling a tub with chicken salad when I heard the breathy chirping of my phone, and I somehow just knew.
Knew it wasn’t Claire, though she’d shown up every day at the deli to have chummy “business planning” lunches with me like she was some venture capitalist and not a pill pusher.
Knew it wasn’t Steve, telling me he wanted to come back to my couch.
It wasn’t even Officer Hernandez, who now had her own ring tone. Which meant it had to be Max.
Unfortunately, Max didn’t have much to say.
I can send a car tomorrow—Saturday. Time?
I texted back as soon as the lunch line died down. Any time after nine. What happened? Are you okay?
His next text took a long time to come. And when it did, it was only four words. I’m fine. Joe’s dead.